.
Command and riches, they are brave things, to be sure; but a word in
your ear--yon duke of yours, he is a fearsome lad."

Catesby laughed.

"Nay," said he, "of a verity he that rides with Crooked Dick will ride
deep. Well, God keep us all from evil! Speed ye well."

Thereupon Dick put himself at the head of his men, and giving the word
of command, rode off.

He made straight across the town, following what he supposed to be the
route of Sir Daniel, and spying around for any signs that might decide
if he were right.

The streets were strewn with the dead and the wounded, whose fate, in
the bitter frost, was far the more pitiable. Gangs of the victors went
from house to house, pillaging and stabbing, and sometimes singing
together as they went.

From different quarters, as he rode on, the sounds of violence and
outrage came to young Shelton's ears; now the blows of the sledge-hammer
on some barricaded door, and now the miserable shrieks of women.

Dick's heart had just been awakened. He had just seen the cruel
consequences of his own behaviour; and the thought of the sum of misery
that was now acting in the whole of Shoreby filled him with despair.

At length he reached the outskirts, and there, sure enough, he saw
straight before him the same broad, beaten track across the snow that he
had marked from the summit of the church. Here, then, he went the faster
on; but still, as he rode, he kept a bright eye upon the fallen men and
horses that lay beside the track. Many of these, he was relieved to see,
wore Sir Daniel's colours, and the faces of some, who lay upon their
back, he even recognised.

About half-way between the town and the forest, those whom he was
following had plainly been assailed by archers; for the corpses lay
pretty closely scattered, each pierced by an arrow. And here Dick spied
among the rest the body of a very young lad, whose face was somehow
hauntingly familiar to him.

He halted his troop, dismounted, and raised the lad's head. As he did
so, the hood fell back, and a profusion of long brown hair unrolled
itself. At the same time the eyes opened.

"Ah! lion-driver!" said a feeble voice. "She is farther on. Ride--ride
fast!"

And then the poor young lady fainted once again.

One of Dick's men carried a flask of some strong cordial, and with this
Dick succeeded in reviving consciousness. Then he took Joanna's friend
upon his saddle-bow, and once more pushed toward the forest.

"Why